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Bike To Work Week organizer hopes for caution, not discouragement after cyclist's death (with video)

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost
, PNG

VANCOUVER - The weekend death of a cyclist on the Lions Gate Bridge highlights the need for safety infrastructure along the Stanley Park Causeway as well as increased education on how to share cycle routes, says the director of a prominent cycle advocacy group.

Erin O’Melinn, director of HUB: Your Cycling Connection, said she was prepared to have many conversations about cycling safety following Saturday’s accident as Bike To Work Week kicked off Monday morning.

“It’s certainly legitimate, we need a lot more education about how people should be using the roads and the sidewalks, I believe, on all fronts,” she said.

HUB has been working with ICBC on road-user training for cyclists and motorists and would like to see mandatory cycling education for children in B.C. schools.

But education is only one piece of the puzzle, O’Melinn said.

According to police, Saturday’s accident occurred when the 61-year-old North Vancouver woman was knocked into the road after hitting pedestrians while riding along the narrow sidewalk. She was struck by a packed Vancouver-bound transit bus and was instantly killed.

O’Melinn said the circumstances of the accident are eerily similar to a rash of incidents that occurred along the Burrard Street Bridge before separated bike lanes were installed.

“You can see the incidents that used to happen there on the bridge deck, with people falling off into traffic, just don’t occur anymore,” she said.

HUB will be petitioning the provincial government, which has jurisdiction over the causeway and the bridge, to install separation barriers. O’Melinn said she hoped the City of Vancouver would join in the effort.

“We’d like to see a designated space for cyclists (along the causeway) ... it’s very narrow and there’s very fast-moving traffic, there’s no barrier between them.”

Cyclist Chris Elwin said she’d feel safer biking the Lions Gate if the railings that separate the sidewalk from the bridge deck continued along the causeway.

“I cycle on here because I want to do the bridge, but I just think it’s ridiculous that there aren’t rails,” she said.

As an Australian here for only a few months, Elwin said the cycling infrastructure in Vancouver is much better than in her hometown of Brisbane. Still, Saturday’s accident left her a bit shocked.

“How on earth did it happen?”

Elwin said she’s become more cautious when approaching pedestrians on the narrow stretch.

“Right now I won’t give pedestrians the right of way, I’ll make them move to the outside so that I can come up the inside,” she said.

However, Elwin’s strategy demonstrates exactly the lack of knowledge around proper safety procedures on shared cycling routes HUB works to combat.

O’Melinn said cyclists along shared routes should alert pedestrians to their presence by using their bells or calling out. If people still don’t step aside, cyclists must yield to pedestrians, dismount and pass on foot.

O’Melinn said she was hopeful Saturday’s accident wouldn’t deter prospective cyclists from saddling up for Bike To Work Week, on until Sunday, and learning about ways to ride more safely.

“I hope that it’s more of a message that people need to be cautious when on their bikes, not that they shouldn’t get on their bikes.

“In general, it’s very safe and we all need to be really aware of the other people using our roads and sidewalks.”

Meanwhile police are still seeking witnesses to the accident, particularly passengers on the standing-room-only bus who may have left the scene before speaking to police.

Anyone who was on the bus and witnessed the crash on Saturday is asked to call the VPD Collision Investigation Unit at 604-717-3012.

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